Occipital, a graduate of Boulder’s TechStars incubator program, is no stranger to successful product launches. The company’s Redlaser smartphone scanning app was downloaded more than 15 million times and was eventually acquired by eBay. Occipital took to Kickstarter with its latest product, a . The camera attachment, geared toward tablets, enables users to instantly capture 3D maps of indoor spaces, among other uses. As of late last week, the project has already garnered more than $750,000 in pledges from more than 2,000 backers, so it’s likely that the project will soar past the $1 million mark. Out of more than 115,000 campaigns that have launched on Kickstarter, . Occipital operates in Boulder and San Francisco. Andy Vuong, The Denver Post
Facebook, Twitter battle for primacy
“Real-time” conversations are emerging as the new battleground for competing social networks Facebook and Twitter, and for their advertisers. While Twitter has been beefing up its ad business in advance of its stock market debut, Facebook has been adding features such as hashtags — words or phrases that represent a topic of discussion — and lists of topics that are currently “trending” as popular, both of which have long been elements of Twitter.
“Twitter has really popularized the idea that what’s happening right now is really important, and you need to pay attention to it, whether you are a consumer or a marketer,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst for the eMarketer research firm. “Facebook knows that, within its walls, lots of those conversations are happening, too.”
Timeliness has always been a key element of Internet advertising: Google makes a big part of its fortune by showing ads that are geared to whatever you’re searching for online, at the moment you’re seeing the search results. Social networks want to sell ads that are geared to whatever people are talking about — “at that moment, not 30 minutes from now, not tomorrow, when they’ve moved on to some other conversation,” Williamson said.
A big part of that effort is focused on television. Twitter has touted its site to advertisers as a place where millions of TV viewers discuss their favorite shows, while they’re watching.
Now, Facebook is also talking up the number of people who visit the social network during prime TV hours — between 88 million and 100 million U.S. users, or “roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every night,” the company said.
Analysts say the company has moved cautiously because of members who only want to share their posts with friends.
Brandon Bailey, San Jose Mercury-News
